Product OverviewUSB 3.0 SuperSpeed Audio Converter for Mac and PCThere’s a whole new world of possibilities for Mac and PC Creators — high-speed, high-resolution, and low-latency. Upgrade your rig with the rackmountable UAC-8, and add 18 inputs and 20 outputs to your USB 3.0-equipped Mac or Windows computer—even your iPad.* Plug in a microphone, line-level device, or instrument and start bringing your ideas to life, or take the UAC-8 onstage to enable high-res audio playback, all the way up to 24-bit/192 kHz.

USB 3.0 SuperSpeedThe USB 3.0 SuperSpeed transfer protocol used by the UAC-8, with a speed of 2.0 ms roundtrip @ 96 kHz / 32 samples, is ten times faster than USB 2.0 and six times faster than FireWire 800. That not only ensures low latency, it provides a data stream that's unaffected by computer jitter (slight variations in timing), so there's no need to connect an external master clock source.

The Hardware

INPUTSThe UAC-8 provides a wide variety of both analog and digital connectors. 8 front panel combo XLR/TRS inputs accept mic- and line-level signals, and you can even plug instruments directly into Inputs 1 and 2. Dedicated input gain controls and Clip LEDs make it easy to set optimum input levels, and a Phantom Power switch enables the use of condenser microphones.

OUTPUTSThe UAC-8 has dual balanced analog TRS output jacks for connection to monitors, and there are also 8 discrete balanced TRS analog line outputs for multichannel monitoring or connection to external effects devices. A large front-panel Output knob offers fast control over output level, and there are two independent ¼" stereo headphone jacks, each with its own dedicated volume control, for private monitoring.

DIGITAL I/O8 ADAT and stereo S/PDIF digital inputs/outputs allow for the connection of up to 10 external channels, and built-in Word Clock enables easy integration into any system. In addition, MIDI In and Out is provided to allow interfacing with devices such as electronic keyboards and drum machines.

Upsampling, Standalone ModeThe UAC-8 uses high-end components such as the AKM AK5388 analog-to-digital converter and AKM AK4413 digital-to-analog converter. In addition, the UAC-8 performs 4-times upsampling during both analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog conversion. In other words, when the sampling frequency is set to 44.1 kHz or 48 kHz, the UAC-8 processes the signal at high resolution 176.4 kHz or 192 kHz.

For A/D conversion, this means less aliasing noise; for D/A conversion, this means increased clarity and fidelity.

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